


A Game of Pool, one Large Crush, and a Little Bit of Luck

by GinnyLuna11



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cute, Fluff, Getting Together, Kent is secretly a huge dork, Light Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann, Secret Crush, So is Alexei and they're perfect for each other, Unrequited Crush, kent fucking parson man, patater
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23089495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinnyLuna11/pseuds/GinnyLuna11
Summary: Kent has a large (okay, fine, enormous) unrequited crush on the notoriously aggressive Falcs player Alexei Mashkov.So when Kent runs into Alexei at a bar after a game and Alexei actually talks to him, he freaks out a little bit. (Maybe more than a little bit. But who can blame him? It's Alexei fucking Mashkov, actual ray of sunshine.)
Relationships: Alexei "Tater" Mashkov/Kent "Parse" Parson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 184





	A Game of Pool, one Large Crush, and a Little Bit of Luck

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into writing Check Please fic, so hopefully it's alright!! I wanted to write some Kent/Tater fic because my boy Kent deserves all the love in the world, so I came up with this super short piece! 
> 
> This is also literally self-indulgent fluff because I needed some more Patater in my life stat.
> 
> All characters were created by Ngozi!!

It wasn’t that Kent was completely fucked. 

Well- 

Maybe he was a little fucked. 

He had to make this shot or else he was going to lose the whole game and Mashkov would win their bet. 

Kent squinted one eye, lined the cue up with the balls and- thump. 

The pool ball bounced unceremoniously on the side of the table and rolled off in the wrong direction.

“Fuck.”

“I win! Kent Parson best at hockey, I am best at pool!”

Alexei joyfully smiled at him, triumphant, and Kent couldn’t breathe. He just- Alexei was too beautiful to be real. 

He would not have a panic attack because of this. A panic attack over a crush? That was new levels of ridiculous, even for Kent, who wears an ancient Britney Spears shirt to sleep almost every night and who may or may not have a matching outfit or two with his cat.

“You owe me and Falcs drinks! Shots for everyone!” Alexei declared, continually radiant to Kent. 

Kent didn’t even have a normal snarky response. That was how much Alexei affected him. 

He walked over to the bartender. “Just put everyone on my tab.”

Cheers went up from what Falcs were in attendance, Scraps laughing beside him.

“Not so good at pool, eh Parser?”

“I’ll have you know I’m normally fantastic at pool, Scrapper. I just…” Kent stared at Alexei, who was currently getting a ridiculous looking drink from the bartender, getting slaps on the back from his teammates. “I was a bit distracted.”

“Oh I could tell.”

Kent’s head snapped around to look at Scraps. “What?”

“Yeah, you were making major lovey dovey eyes to Mashkov the entire time. No joke.”

The panic Kent had felt earlier came back in spades. If Scraps had noticed, did anyone else? He wasn’t out to the world yet. He only came out to his teammates at the start of last season. 

His breathing came quicker, vision blurring.

“Hey man, are you okay?” Scraps quickly asked, having to shout a little over the music that had started playing. 

“Yeah- Yes. I just- I need… air. I’m gonna go- air. Get some air. Outside.”

“Alright man.”

Kent practically flew out of the bar, immediately sitting down with his back against the outer wall over the bar, head between his knees, breathing steadily like his therapist told him.

He’d known that somewhere deep in his gut that maybe going to the bar after the game wasn’t such a good idea, because he knew that Alexei would be here.

But it was also a fantastic idea for that exact same reason. 

Kent just loved to torture himself with the one Thing he absolutely, one-thousand-and-ten-percent cannot have. The Thing he shouldn’t have because he’s too scared he’ll fuck everything up in his usual Kent fashion. The Thing Kent didn’t think he deserved. The Thing Kent wasn’t ready to reveal to the world yet.

So that’s why Kent found himself in a bar about two blocks from his apartment, coming face to face with the one and only Alexei Mashkov, otherwise known as the most miraculously beautiful and unfairly hot guy in the whole league and probably the whole world, according to Kent.

Let’s get something straight here- he’s Kent fucking Parson- Stanley Cup Champion, captain of the Aces, first overall draft pick, winner of just about every hockey trophy known to man. But he’s also fucking Kent Parson, the rat who plays dirty hockey, who is probably too messed up to have a boyfriend of any sort (much less Alexei Mashkov), and only went first in the draft because Jack- well. That still hurt too much to even think about. 

See, the thing about Kent is that he lives alone with Kit in his Las Vegas penthouse and does his fair share of partying and sleeping around, even though he’s starting to run out of guys he can trust enough to stay quiet. Everyone knows him as the Jack Zimmermann foil- the reckless opposition to Jack’s level-headed determination. That’s why they worked so well together. Because they filled in the personality traits that the other lacked. 

But here’s another thing about Kent that no one knows (and if they did, Kent would check them so hard they would beg for mercy). Kent wants a boyfriend. A real boyfriend who cares about him and loves him and does all the normal boyfriend-y stuff. Kent would absolutely be kidding himself if he said he didn’t want a relationship like Jack and his annoyingly nice boyfriend.

(Sometimes he wants it so bad that he lies awake and stares at the ceiling in his king sized bed in his huge penthouse, just imagining what it would be like to have someone there who wasn’t just there for a wild night with an NHL All-Star.)

So, on one of those sleepless alone nights, Kent had gotten lost in the Falconers’ social media pages- Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram- exploring new posts about Jack and his semi-recent signing when he stumbled upon Alexei Mashkov. Of course Kent vaguely knew the name and had seen him on the ice before, but he had never truly seen Mashkov off the ice. 

Kent then spent the next ungodly amount of time digging up every video, every picture of Alexei Mashkov only to find himself utterly and completely enamored with the guy three hours past when he was supposed to be sleeping. It’s not his fault- really, it wasn’t. What made Kent interested in the first place was the stupid announcers on whatever sports channel he had on earlier that week. They were talking about Mashkov being an enforcer- the big Russian protector of his team. 

But that wasn’t Mashkov at all, Kent had found. He was just this big teddy bear who really, really loved his teammates. And pie. The Falconers’ media portrayed him as this giggly, happy guy that was so easy to fall in love with. (so easy that Kent was gone when Mashkov blushed and ducked his head in one of their little FalcsTV segments about the players’ dating lives. Mashkov had just been asked what advice he would give to another man in terms of a relationship. He said, “Be yourself. Right person will love all of you. Good parts and bad parts. Well,” he said, scrunching up his face, “no part of person really bad, just make them not perfect. But perfect for right person. Is that making sense?” Kent can definitely say that was the exact moment he fell head over heels for Mashkov. And then, later that morning during practice, he realized that Mashkov hadn’t used any pronouns at all. He almost skated into the boards. That’s also when he started becoming Alexei in Kent’s head.)

So when Kent walked into the bar next to his penthouse after a hard loss to the Falcs at home, he wasn’t surprised to see some of the Falconers there, but his heart nearly stopped when he saw Alexei was there too.

He was shocked when Alexei looked up and met his eyes as he came in with Scraps behind him. 

“Ah! Kent Parson! Was good game tonight, no?”

Kent could barely get out a response without confessing his undying love for the man. “It wasn’t exactly a well-called match, but you guys won, so who cares?” 

Even in the face of his crush, Kent couldn’t help but be just a little bit sour about their loss tonight. Alexei faltered, looking at his teammates before responding.

“Well what about rematch? Here, now?” Alexei asked, nodding his head to the pool table behind them. 

Kent raised an eyebrow. “Another chance to beat you? Game on. If you win, I’ll buy everybody a round.”

The biggest smile Kent had ever seen grew on Alexei’s face and his breath caught in his throat. “Don’t want to miss drink from the great Kent Parson. Must beat you now!”

Alexei bounded over to the pool table while Kent ordered a shot to get him through this game with his crush. 

And now where was Kent? In the disgusting back alley of the bar where no one would see him, trying not to have a panic attack at the threat of being outed. Kent had missed his chance because he was a coward. He was a complete screw-up who didn’t want to out himself, who was too scared to let something good past his internal walls he had so carefully and painstakingly built.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t-

He heard running footsteps get closer to where he was sitting outside the bar. 

“Kent Parson.”

No. Alexei and his stupid soft voice was the last person he wanted to see or hear right now. He was actually the person he was trying to avoid. 

His heart immediately sped up. Kent refused to look up, but he could see Alexei’s shoes in front of him. Maybe if he ignored him, he would go away and Kent could go back to crushing on him from afar and only seeing him a couple times a year during the season. Kent could manage that. 

What Kent couldn’t manage was when Alexei sat down next to him, pulling his knees almost all the way up to his chin.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

Oh, Christ. This was the part when Alexei would say that he knew Kent was in love with him and that he wasn’t interesting in all that gay stuff but don’t worry I won’t out you thing. (Kent knew Alexei was too nice to out him.) 

“Been meaning to talk to you, tried to find you after game, but Aces said you already left. Said you would come here, after loss. Wouldn’t have come out tonight but… wanted to see you in person. Get chance to talk to you.”

Was he dreaming? Kent was sure he was trapped inside a dream. He lifted his head slowly, snapback falling off his head. Alexei glanced up at his hair, eyes catching on the cowlick for a moment so quick that Kent was barely sure it had happened. 

“We in Vegas for another day before we leave for California. Was wondering if you wanted to… maybe go eat? Or coffee?”

Kent almost threw up on the sidewalk. How the hell was this actually happening?“Am I dreaming?” Kent asked, his voice quiet.

Alexei laughs, and Kent was already so obsessed with his laugh from the videos he had seen but it was a thousand times better in person. “No, Kent Parson, not dreaming.”

“Call me Kent.”

“Okay. Kent. Will come up with better nickname later. Promise.”

Alexei looked so damn happy and hopeful and Kent… Kent was nervous. He didn’t want to screw this up. He wanted this so bad.

“I’m terrible at this.”

“Okay.”

“I’m a screw-up.”

“Not a screw-up.”

“How do you know?” Kent asked weakly.

“Because I see you. With teammates, with fans, with cat. You have good heart, Kent Parson. Heart that I… I…” Alexei trailed off, and Kent held his breath. 

Alexei just smiled and shrugged, looking down at his lap. Kent took a fortifying breath and steeled himself for what he was about to do. 

“I’ve had a crush on you for like a year, Alexei.” 

Alexei looked up at him so fast Kent was worried for his neck. 

“But I swear if you tell anyone-“

Alexei’s lips came crashing down onto Kent’s- soft and warm and everything Kent had imagined and more. They were both laughing in between kisses, Alexei’s hands gently holding his face, running through his hair-

Kent climbed into Alexei’s lap, settling there like he was officially claiming his spot. He leaned against Alexei’s chest, fitting his head right under Alexei’s like he had been doing this for years.

“Never got answer to my question,” Alexei murmured. Kent pulled away slightly, smiling at Alexei. 

“I would love to go on a date with you. And about a thousand dates after that, too.”

Kent felt Alexei laugh beneath him as he got settled against his chest again. Kent took a deep breath, finally able to breathe, and Alexei stroked his back knowingly. 

Kent looked up at the night sky, filled with stars and wonder, with Alexei’s arms wrapped around his middle, wondering how he got so lucky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I love these two dorks so much!


End file.
